


The Beast That Bears No Name

by dairesfanficrefuge_archivist



Category: Highlander: The Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-08-21
Updated: 2003-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 05:28:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11867712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dairesfanficrefuge_archivist/pseuds/dairesfanficrefuge_archivist
Summary: The story begins in the year 1927 BC and tells the tale of the Immortal Gilgamesh. An error from his wild days in the distant past comes to haunt him, and he will never be the same again...





	The Beast That Bears No Name

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Daire, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Daire's Fanfic Refuge](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Daire%27s_Fanfic_Refuge). Deciding to give the stories a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Daire's Fanfic Refuge's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/dairesfanficrefuge/profile).

The Beast That Bears No Name by Ammaletu

  
  


_The Beast That Bears No Name_

By Ammaletu 

rating: PG-13, some violence   
characters: Gilgamesh, original characters, Graham Ashe, Marcus Constantinus   
summary: The story begins in the year 1927 BC and tells the tale of the Immortal Gilgamesh. An error from his wild days in the distant past comes to haunt him, and he will never be the same again... 

* * *

_Gilgamesh,_   
From the day of his birth   
His name was glory.   
Two-thirds of him is god,   
Only one-third man. 

1927 BC - Sumeria 

The song echoed within the strong walls of the palace, growing louder and quieter, but ever so sweet. A man was standing in the shadow of a column, looking at the young Mari who sat in one of the many courtyards. She sang an old song that hardly anyone apart from her grandmother still knew today. But Mari liked this song that told of immortal heroes and voyages to far-away countries. She liked singing it. 

Gilgamesh stepped out of the shadow and went over to her. He kissed his wife, and she looked up to him. 

"Have you come to listen to me, my king?" she asked and smiled. "The next verses are the best of the song. The death of the demon Chumbaba." 

Gilgamesh sighed and sat down on the ground, his back leaning against the well. "You know that I haven't killed him. I wish I had." 

Images from the distant past crossed his mind, images from another time. The priest had advised him to delay the beheading for the full moon as a sacrifice for the god Anu. But Chumbaba had managed to escape in the night. His men had hunted him to the edge of the sea, but he disappeared in the waves... 

Mari put a hand on his shoulder while his head leaned against her knees. "You're taking Omad's death too much to heart, my sweet," she said softly. "He knew the risk he was taking when he went as an emissary." 

It was two days now since an envoy had brought them a message from king Chumbaba: There would be no peace as long as Gilgamesh's head sat on his shoulders. That was the message, and to emphasize it, Chumbaba had sent them the head of the man that Gilgamesh had personally assigned with the journey to Uruk. His best soldier and loyal friend. 

He should have known that he could not trust Chumbaba, but he had thought that for once the good of their two countries would be more important than the Game of the Immortals. After this summer's drought, another war between Uruk and Eshnunna would have devastating consequences for the people on both sides. 

Gilgamesh's gaze wandered to the sky that began to grow red in the west. "I take the death of so many people to heart, Mari, that I have stopped counting. All those songs about immortal heroes never mention the pain that comes with immortality. The pain when all around you die." 

_Enkidu,_ he thought, _dear companion..._ His friend had died of a fever, painful and without glory. More than 500 years had gone by since then. 

"Sometimes I wonder if this is all worth it. What am I achieving in this endless life anyway?" 

Mari lowered herself to her knees in front of Gilgamesh and looked him straight in the eyes. "Don't you dare speak this way, you hear me?" Nobody else would talk like that to the king. "We die, yes. Maybe the next war will kill us all, who knows. But that doesn't matter as long as we have lived well. And the people of Eshnunna are living very well under your governance." 

Mari still looked him firmly into the eyes, and then Gilgamesh nodded and started smiling. But in his mind was no place for happiness anymore. The realm of the Sumerians was in a sorry state, split in many combating city states. Gilgamesh had been driven from Uruk, Chumbaba now sat on the throne there. And his armies outbalanced Gilgamesh's by at least a third. 

"If I leave the town," said Gilgamesh musing, "he probably won't attack, at least not this year." 

"You can't sacrifice yourself for the rest of us!" protested Mari. "It isn't worth one year or two. He will attack Eshnunna anyway, you know that. But you will live on." 

Gilgamesh looked at Mari, and in this moment he remembered again why he hadn't taken other women beside her. And then the horn echoed from the walls, its sound auguring trouble. 

* * *

Gilgamesh stepped on the wall deck next to Unnar. "My king, you should betake yourself to the palace," the leader of his army advised. "It's not safe here anymore." As if to emphasize his words, an arrow whirred towards them and bounced from the walls behind Gilgamesh. 

"We'll need every sword we can get, and you know that," the Immortal responded. "I'm not going to hide in the palace." 

His gaze slid over the armies of Uruk assembled in front of the city. Two days had passed since that afternoon in the courtyard when the baneful sound of the horn had announced the first sighting of the enemy. For over a day now their soldiers kept attacking the walls of Eshnunna, besieging the city wall with catapults, and covering the defenders with one volley of arrows after the other. 

"We are going to miss Omad," he said quietly, the picture of his now dead brother-in-arms before his mind. 

Unnar cleared his throat. "If I may be so frank: It's not Omad we're going to miss, my king. It's two hundred soldiers." The strategist said this in a deadly serious tone, and his king knew that he was right. This battle was going to be bloody. 

* * *

Gilgamesh screamed in pain when another lance hit him. One of his remaining soldiers jumped in and attacked the guardsman, but two other warriors of Uruk killed him after a brief fight. 

"Withdraw!" Gilgamesh shouted, agonized by the pain. "The palace, protect the palace!" The women and children had been evacuated there when the adversarial army finally had managed to break through the walls. Eshnunna's fighters had killed many of Chumbaba's soldiers, but the guard of the king of Uruk was too strong. They had driven him to this place, the central square of the city, had surrounded him and separated him from his men. 

_Maybe I should have listened to Unnar,_ Gilgamesh thought while he spun around quickly with his sword raised, trying to block any further approaches. The wound began to close, but not nearly fast enough. 

Gilgamesh seriously suspected that Chumbaba had informed the soldiers of his guard about Gilgamesh's immortality. They didn't come near enough to be killed, none of them engaged in a fight sword against sword. With lances they kept him at bay, and time and again one of the lances hit him, bronze spearheads penetrating his flesh. Gilgamesh's head jerked around when he heard the high scream of a woman, somewhere beyond the square. At this moment he was hit again. A lance bored into his chest, another tore a wound into his right leg. 

Gilgamesh sank slowly down to his knees, exhausted to the edge of unconsciousness and near to yield to despair. His hands were covered with the blood of his enemies, but now his sword slipped away from them. The Guard of Uruk. Once, this guard had obeyed only him, once he had been their god. Once, a very long time ago, he himself had been the glorious king of Uruk. But now Chumbaba sat on the throne of Uruk... 

And while around him the destruction of the city of Eshnunna began, Gilgamesh died from his thousand wounds. 

* * *

He awoke with a twitch. The sun shone directly onto his face, and Gilgamesh was confused, didn't know where he was at first. The sun... They attacked at dawn, he remembered. And it had taken less than a week until they broke through the walls. This weren't the walls of Uruk, those unconquerable strongholds. This was Eshnunna the fair. A city not made for war. 

Gilgamesh tried to sit up, but something hindered him. He was tied up, he noticed, and in this moment the memories came back. The guardsmen, encircling him, killing his last soldiers. Impaling him on their lances! He was captured, and that could only mean that Eshnunna had fallen! 

Gilgamesh looked around and turned his head as far as he could to evade the beams of the sun. He obviously wasn't at the city anymore, he observed. The rocks... He looked to the other side - yes, this was the temple of Ishtar that he had ordered to be built. The temple lay at the end of a valley, half a day's ride north to the city. The mighty faces of the rocks converged here, and at the point they met the temple ducked against the steep face. Gilgamesh lay on the square in front of it. 

Suddenly he felt it, the susurration of the gods, heralding the presence of another Immortal. A shadow stepped in front of the sun, and he heard the detested voice of Chumbaba. 

"Mighty Gilgamesh...," his enemy taunted him. He kicked at the captive, and Gilgamesh could do nothing but take the kick. 

"Don't you have the courage to confront me in battle?" he barked at the shadow in his sight. 

Chumbaba bent down to him, so that Gilgamesh could feel his warm breath. "Oh, but I did already," the king of Uruk whispered. "Don't you remember? And I won..." 

Having said this, he stood up and went away. And Gilgamesh remembered: Their duel in the cedar wood, his defeat and Enkidu, coming to his rescue in the last moment. His soldiers had killed Chumbaba with a dozen arrows. _Enkidu, you have never obeyed any rules,_ the captive thought wistfully. 

* * *

Hours had passed when suddenly men arrived. Gilgamesh addressed them but none came near him or answered a single word. The atmosphere was gloomy, and he could do nothing but stare at the ever same part of the sky. The thought that he was at holy ground didn't really set him at ease. Instead, Gilgamesh brooded about the question whether Mari had managed to escape the conquered city. 

The next morning, Chumbaba returned and let two of his soldiers prop Gilgamesh up. He tried to pull a knife from the belt of one of the two men, but he was too weak to be fast enough. When he had stomached the blow of the soldier, Gilgamesh saw for the first time what the men had worked at on the other day and half of the night: Everywhere in front of the temple low stakes had been erected, wherever the consistency of the ground allowed it. The temple's portal had been violently widened by pulling out half a wall. And in the center of the looted sanctuary stood an odd-looking structure made of... Well, it didn't seem to be bronze as it glimmered in a strange color. 

Gilgamesh looked at Chumbaba. "What kind of a game are you playing? This is holy ground! You can't behead me here." 

Chumbaba laughed out loud. "Oh, I don't intend to behead you, at least not for now." All of a sudden he became serious again, and his voice sounded biting. "I came up with something better for you. I'll make you a present; the present of time. Time to think about how to fight honorably." 

Saying that, he gave an order to his soldiers, and they dragged him into the temple and towards the metallic structure that reminded him in a strange way of a throne. They forced him close to the structure and had quite some trouble to keep the giant Sumerian under control while one chain after the other was wrapped around his chest, his arms, and his legs. In the end, nearly his entire body was covered with the alien metal, tying him to the structure. Only his face was left uncovered. Gilgamesh strained all his muscles, but the chains and metal bonds didn't give in at all. 

And this was the moment when Gilgamesh's worst nightmare came true. Chumbaba's soldiers brought people in, prisoners like him, and Gilgamesh recognized all of them. There was Unnar, his general, and Sininni, his personal servant. Titna-ushtim, the highest priest of Eshnunna, and there was... Gilgamesh's heart broke when he saw Mari, tied up and with bruises all over her body. 

Again he tried to break the chains, and his scream sounded through the temple. "What are you doing, demon! This is between you and me alone!" 

The last metal bond was put around Gilgamesh's body, fixing the position of his head. He now had to look straight ahead, through the temple and out into the valley. He closed his eyes when soldiers began to break through the floor plates of the temple, erecting more stakes right in his range of vision. The drumming noise of the hammers echoed in his ears. Finally, a painful punch to his stomach made him open his eyes again. A dozen prisoners were now bound to the stakes, and through the destroyed portal Gilgamesh could see many more outside the temple. Each of them was bound to the stake in a way that they were able to see their king. 

"I would rather have let all of them be killed," Chumbaba said nonchalantly. "But someone has to rebuild the destroyed city. So as a substitution I chose one hundred of your dearest friends and confidants for you. So that you're not so alone." 

Chumbaba's voice was full of sarcasm. Then he pulled a knife from his belt, grasped the left arm of Sininni and cut his veins open with a swift movement. "The blood of your subjects for the blood of mine!" 

His voice was cold and piercing now as he walked on to the next stake, grabbing an arm of the heavily resisting Titna-ushtim. He ignored the spells of the priest, and seconds later the stone plates at the feet of Titna-ushtim were coloring red. 

Gilgamesh saw the mortal fear in the eyes of the prisoners, and right now he would have sacrificed everything to save them. "Take my head and let them go," he said quietly. He waited, and Chumbaba looked at him, but than he put on a sinister smile and turned towards the next prisoner. 

"For my slain brother!" he thundered, and Gilgamesh saw centuries old wrath well up. Wasini-uni, the wise woman of the market place, died with a quiet sigh. 

"For the burned down cedar palace, the ornament of my realm!" Chumbaba killed another prisoner, by now the temple floor had turned into a sea of blood. 

Finally, Chumbaba turned to Gilgamesh again and looked at him with a glisten in his eyes. "And for you letting mortals kill me to save you from a defeat!" 

"Take my head!" Gilgamesh screamed, but Chumbaba thrust the knife into Unna's chest without mercy. 

Then he turned to the next stake - Mari's. He gently pushed a streak of hair out of her face, and Gilgamesh's eyes grew wide of horror. What should he say? There was nothing left that he could offer Chumbaba, and there was no god that he hadn't already silently begged for help. Chumbaba raised the knife, but then he smiled again. "No, not you," he whispered. 

And then the Immortal turned away, and on a note from him his soldiers withdrew from the temple. "Some day I'll come to collect your head. Some day," Chumbaba called over his shoulder before he stepped through the portal and left Gilgamesh alone with the dying and the dead. 

* * *

He couldn't turn his head, he couldn't release himself of the chains - and when the soldiers came and killed more of the prisoners, they forced him to open his eyes. Chumbaba didn't show his face again, and after six days only Mari was still alive. Gilgamesh looked at her but didn't know what to say. How could he ask for her forgiveness for all this? It hurt him to see her like this, and it hurt him even more to recognize the same love now in her eyes that had been there the day the king of Eshnunna had visited the tavern of her father. 

They had given her water and something to eat once, but Gilgamesh could see that she was at the end of her strength. Suddenly she raised her head, looked at him and spoke for the first time since their capture: "Live on, Gilgamesh! Live on, my love!" And then she began to sing, with a fragile and weak voice, but untiring: 

_Slain he had the wretch of the forest_   
At whose word Saria and Lebanon had trembled.   
Gilgamesh struck the neck of Chumbaba,   
Enkidu, his friend, struck him twice also.   
At the third blow fell Chumbaba,   
The demon of the cedar forest.   
And all the mountains became fearful,   
All the hills became atremble   
In the face of Gilgamesh,   
The hero of Uruk. 

Gilgamesh didn't open his eyes when Mari's voice fell silent, and weeks passed before he looked at the world again - at the only part of the world that he could see. A grave of all the people who had trusted him. 

In these days Gilgamesh wished Chumbaba would come and fight him, for his rage was greater than ever before. But eventually, his rage concentrated on no one but himself. He was Gilgamesh, the glorious hero of Uruk, favorite of the gods. But still, he had not been able to prevent this. He had not been strong enough to protect his people. They had died for something he had done in another, long bygone life. 

And then, after he had died of thirst and hunger for the hundredth or thousandth time, he simply longed for death. 

* * *

Time went by. Chumbaba didn't rule long over Uruk before a group of foreign mercenaries raided his realm. The warriors from the far-away country of Kush began to burn down villages, and so Chumbaba gathered his army and marched towards them. But in battle it turned out that the three leaders of the mercenaries were Immortals. Chumbaba's soldiers were not able to defeat them, and in the end, he lost his head to one of the dark-skinned warriors. In his last moments he thought of a small, decayed temple north of Eshnunna, and he died with a smile on his face. 

* * *

Time continued to wear away. Gilgamesh had broken his own neck to pull his head out of the metal bond, but the rest of the chains were attached a lot more maliciously. Years went by until he realized that there was no escape from this prison. 

Eventually, one of the chains at his left leg broke. Gilgamesh noticed it, but he did not throw himself against the chains anymore. His head was turned to the side, the only freedom that he had. His gaze rested upon the vegetation that was slowly reconquering the decaying temple. This way, he sometimes was able to forget that a hundred skeletons lay in the dust at his feet, that a hundred skulls were facing him with their accusing empty eye sockets. 

And then, one day, the temple roof collapsed and buried the skeletons of the Sumerians. The falling stones killed the chained king, and he welcomed the death. 

* * *

_856 BC - Sumeria_

The traveler approached the valley. "Cursed," he mumbled and laughed sarcastically. The villagers of this region also believed the sky would fall onto their heads at a solar eclipse! He shook his brown curls from his face and rode on. Then he saw something at the wayside that the rain of the previous day must have washed from the sand: a human skull. He took a closer look at his surroundings and saw symbols scratched into the rocks and another skull on a rock spur. "An old burial site?" 

But night was about to fall, and it grew bitter then in this country. _Holy ground, all the better,_ he thought and rode deeper into the valley, searching for a shelter. 

The valley had a dead end, but half built into the steep rock faces the traveler found the ruins of a building, probably a temple. Nearly all of the walls had collapsed, but the back side of the temple lay deep enough into the rock. He would find shelter there for the night. He dismounted and led the horse over the weathered stone plates. 

A strange feeling overcame him, and then he saw the many bones and skulls lying between the debris of the temple roof. "A burial site, indeed," he said. This place was more dismal than he had thought. But he went on because he did not believe in ghosts - until he saw a human hand protrude from under a big stone, intact and without any signs of decomposition. 

The strange feeling grew stronger, and suddenly Tjanefer knew that the source was an Immortal. It wasn't easy to free him from the stones. Below them, the shattered body of a man appeared - an Immortal. He was bound to an abstract metal sculpture with countless chains. Tjanefer freed him of them, too, then he lit a fire and waited. He must have dozed off because suddenly the feeling of the presence of an Immortal woke him. 

Tjanefer sat up and glanced over to the burned down fire where the other Immortal lay. The sky was just beginning to turn red from the dawn, and in the dim light Tjanefer saw that the fractures of the stranger seemed to have healed overnight. His organs had resumed their function, and he was awake, but he only lay there and starred at the ground. Tjanefer stood up and walked over, throwing some branches into the embers of the fire. 

"I'm Tjanefer of Troy," he introduced himself. He waited but the other did not respond. 

"Who are you?" asked Tjanefer before he remembered that the man might not understand his Greek. He tried Babylonian, the most prominent language in this country, and that at least provoked the man to turn his head and look at him. But in his eyes Tjanefer could not make out any comprehension. He could not make out anything at all in this eyes, Tjanefer thought. They were empty like a blank papyrus. 

Suddenly, the stranger bent his head forward, presenting his neck to Tjanefer. From the corner of his eyes the man looked at the sword that the Immortal held in his hand as a backing for the worst case. It took him a moment to understand the other's intention: He wanted to die. He hesitated. The thought of beheading him just like that didn't seem right. Besides, they were on holy ground here. Tjanefer shook his head silently, then he went back to his bags and prepared a breakfast. 

* * *

Gilgamesh followed the man that spoke in such alien languages with his gaze. His thoughts were moving slowly. All the years that he had spent staring through the destroyed portal of the temple had not provided him with reasons to think quickly. And now... He was confused, his memory was shattered. But as if by magic his gaze was attracted by a certain spot on the ground. He shoved aside a stone and looked upon a half-smashed skull. 

"Mari..." he whispered, and his for centuries unused vocal chords managed only to produce a raspy caw. This was the place where she had died, singing. As little as he could remember, he still heard clearly her voice. _Live on, my love!_

Yes, he was alive. Whatever game the gods might be playing with him, he was still alive. A voice broke into his fragmented mind, and when he slowly turned around he saw the stranger, offering him a chunk of bread. 

"Tjanefer," he said and pointed to himself. He repeated the word, and Gilgamesh began to understand that it must be the name of the man. Then Tjanefer pointed towards him and looked at him in an inquiring way. He asked something, repeated the question. 

_He wants to know my name,_ he thought. He remained silent, stared into space. _But who am I? Gilgamesh, the hero of Uruk?_ His gaze wandered around over all the scattered bones and skulls, and from that moment on he never again thought of Gilgamesh. The name simply vanished from his memory. 

* * *

_267 BC - Northern Italy_

He drew the bearskin tighter around his shoulders. Despite the incipient spring, it was still quite cold in the evening. Under the cover of the dimming light he moved nearer to the camp. He avoided people wherever he could like they avoided him, but now he felt strongly attracted. A melody echoed through the camp, sung by the lovely voice of a woman. 

"Mari..." he whispered, but part of him knew that it wasn't her, that it couldn't possibly be her. Nonetheless, he moved closer. He ducked and crawled on all fours towards the big fire that burned in the middle of the camp. 

* * *

Marcus Constantinus smiled. There they sat, his proud warriors, listening to the song of the woman, enchanted. _But let them,_ he thought. _We more than deserve a small rest from war._ It had been a good idea to ask the local villagers for some entertainment for the evening. His troop was truly tired and sapped. 

Suddenly a call sounded through the camp and interrupted the singing. "A bear! A bear!" 

A man came running through the rows of tents and pointed over his shoulder. Constantinus stepped in his way. "What's the matter, soldier?" he asked. 

"A bear, Centurio. At the edge of the camp." 

Marcus Constantinus thought about it for a moment, then he waved to his second-in-command. "Let the woman sing on. I'll manage it." 

He took up his sword and went to the border of the camp. There he already beheld three of his soldiers who had encircled a small group of trees near the last tents, their swords drawn. They kept a large creature at check in the underbrush around the trees. He saw the bearskin, but in that second he felt it: the sign that another Immortal was close. 

Constantinus peered around him for he was the only Immortal in his centuria. Then his gaze wandered back to the alleged bear, and he saw a face appear under the bearskin. The man huddled up on the ground, his back pressed against a tree, wrapped tightly in the bearskin. 

"I'm Centurio Marcus Constantinus of the fifth legion of Rome," he introduced himself, his sword raised on alert. "Who are you?" 

* * *

The unknown Immortal looked at him intensely and repeated his question. He spoke a different language than the people living near the mountains. The languages came and went, and it was barely worthwhile to learn them. But through soldier camps like this one, he had picked up enough of it in the last years to know that he was asked for his name. His name... 

He had no name, had not needed one since an eternity. What should he answer? One name was as good as another. And so he chose the name that the soldiers had called him when they had spotted him: 

"Ursa." 

And his faced relaxed when from inside the camp the woman's fair and beautiful voice continued to sing... 

  


  
_\- THE END -_

* * *

Notes:   
I admit it: I actually like the episode "The Beast Below". I always had the impression that Ursa might be more than just an Immortal who grew up in the forest. I imagined him as one of the very old Immortals, someone whom a brutal incident had driven to back out of the world and into the depth of his own mind. The idea to let Ursa be the same person as Gilgamesh (an Immortal according to the episode "Indiscretions") occurred some time later to me when I was musing about Ursa's potential past. 

Following that idea, I took heavy inspiration from the Gilgamesh epic, which I admittedly didn't read entirely. But I found a rather interesting to read German translation of it, and out of that I put together the italic passages from above (the first from tablet 1, the second from tablet 5, but in the Old-Babylonian version). I translated it into English myself because the translations I found didn't sound as lyrical as I wanted them to sound. 

I also took a lot of the names and places from the epic. The spelling of names like Enkidu or Chumbaba does widely vary, so I just took it as I found it in the German translation. The cities of Uruk and Eshnunna did actually exist. 

And for those who know the tale of Gilgamesh (all others: Check it out! Fascinating story, and it so screams for Gilgamesh being an Immortal! *g*): Yes, in the epic Gilgamesh did kill Chumbaba. I'm assuming that Gilgamesh's bards and poets embellished the tale a bit in his favor. 

As some of you might not know: "Tjanefer of Troy" is a former name of Graham Ashe from the episode "End of Innocence" (according to the Watcher Chronicles). And since I already was using known Immortals and needed a Roman, I gave Marcus Constantinus an appearance. With this last scene, the transition from Gilgamesh to Ursa is complete. He now lives a quiet life in the woods of Europe, far away from his glorious past. I have been asked why Gilgamesh, upon awaking from his centuries long death, didn't seek revenge. What I was trying to display is how the centuries of pain, self-reproach, and pure apathy had numbed his mind. His thoughts became slow, all ambition vanished, and the trauma let him forget, if not repress, his memories, leading to the Immortal Ursa whom we met in the Highlander episode. So the scene with Tjanefer should show exactly this: The empty shell that once was Gilgamesh. I'm assuming that after his awakening he simply set off into the world, never looking back. 

"Ursa" is the Latin word for "bear". Not so hard to imagine why he was named so, given his stature, and I assume that the name somehow stuck to the Immortal. 

A "centuria" was a unit of a Roman legion, normally 100 soldiers or less, led by a "centurio". The English terms would be "century" and "centurion", but I like the original Latin terms better. Especially "century" might be a bit confusing in the context I use it in. 

With thanks to...   
...the proof readers of the translation: Adrienne and Tirnanog   
...the beta readers of the original story: Aisling, Anja, Cora, Kaineus and Kathrin 

_written: 21/27 Aug 2003_

* * *

© 2004 \+ emailE + '">'   
Please send comments to the author! 

09/12/2004 

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